If In Doubt

if in doubt

a cup of tea

if in doubt

a walk

if in doubt

Chuang Tzu

if in doubt

Uchiyama

if in doubt

sleep

Junk Mail

thank god for junk mail

otherwise all we'd get

is mail from people we know

telling us things that matter

or the latest news on their lives

when all we really want

is fake news about Gillette razors

or an offer of £1 million

from a Nigerian prince

if only we'd share our bank details

God invented junk mail

so that when AI

takes all of our jobs

including the writing of poems

about junk mail

and AI taking all of our jobs

there will still be something meaningless to do

anything will do

so long as we don't have to

sit still and just be,

dwelling on who we are

and for what reason

now that we are no longer

in the workplace culture

that has defined our existence

for the past two hundred years

All These People

all these people

trying to be themselves

but they don't know how

all these people

wandering in total confusion

not knowing who they are

all these people

lost in the wilderness

of their own heart

all these people

forsaken by themselves

looking for forgiveness

for something they didn't do

all these people

not aware

that they are already home

all these people

strung out on ropes

that don't exist

all these people

poor people

with eyes shut

thinking they're open

Reunion with my parents and theirs

When this is all over

we'll all go together

and pull wild mountain thyme

like they sing in that song of old

and we'll all be together

and we'll know that death

is just a shutter

and when you pull it open

the sun shines through the window

and illuminates us all

and we'll all be together

and we'll all hold each other

and the pain and loss and grief

will dissolve in the heather

and we'll pull the wild mountain thyme

while the world stands still

to give us eternity

and I will hold your eyes with mine

and love will envelope us

for all time

Young Man on the Ship

young man on board

scared, trying to hide it

no bravado, no bragging

just hiding inside himself

young man blocking all feelings

shutting down in order to function

mind focussed on the radar

young man

time had to come

where it all burst open

six breakdowns

five months

twice in hospital

four times in rest homes

twenty two years old

a long way from home

a long way from whole

a long way to heal

did you ever heal?

The Gift of Grief

grief is the gift

that reminds you you loved someone

grief is the gift

that reminds you

that life is precious

grief is the gift

that teaches you hurt

and from hurt

you might just find true empathy

grief is the gift

you don't want

but need

Aging Rock Stars

we are now getting to the stage

where we don't go to concerts

to applaud our heroes

for their music

but to pay them homage and love

in case it's the last time we get

to see them alive,

which, all else being equal,

is pretty likely.

One Tomorrow

One tomorrow I will die

and I won't have that tomorrow

and that tomorrow will occur

without my presence

without my participation

and I won't write any poems that tomorrow

and I won't tell my son and daughter I love them

that tomorrow

and I won't make a cup of coffee for my wife

or get Mia's medications ready

or feed the bunnies

or check my to do list

that tomorrow

because that tomorrow

will not be my tomorrow

but only the tomorrow

for the living

and that won't include me.

Giving Time

To everything there is a season

a time to take

and a time to give

so I was asked to give a talk

to a group of people

whose loved ones

had taken their own life

I had nothing to offer

but my time

so I gave my time

and hoped that somehow

my time

might do something for them

Encounter with Survival

It was in Ukraine

in the farming village

next to where my father was born.

Dad's village had been destroyed

to wipe out all signs of it

after the war.

So no one we spoke to knew of it

until an old woman came out of her house

and she walked with us

to where the settlement had been.

Through the translator

she explained that she remembered the Polish village school.

She went there, after the war,

when it was no longer a Polish school,

but a Soviet-Ukrainian one,

all the Poles having been

deported to Russia in 1940

or murdered in 1943

or deported after the war to Western Poland in 1945

which, months earlier, had been part of Germany.

And then she said that she,

just a little girl,

used to live in a part of Poland

which was still a part of Poland

after the war,

and that she and all her Ukrainian neighbours

were all deported to Soviet Ukraine.

Thus the Poles were ethnically cleansed to Poland

the Ukrainians to Ukraine

the Germans to Germany

and so on

like a tumbling massive game of chess.

So, she said in summary,

she didn't know the Poles who used to live here

because she came after they were all gone,

and she, as a Ukrainian raised in Poland

became lost and bewildered when sent to Ukraine to live,

she laughed, I was lost because I was now a Ukrainian in Ukraine.

Done Doing

I've done doing

now just being

am through with doing so much

now going to be much more

doing is over-rated

being can't be over-stated

done doing

now loving being alive

alive oh!

Monkey

I've got the monkey off my back

and it feels so good

no monkey there of course

and I've no back to speak of

only to write about

I'm spineless in a good way

the best way

the way that God has no spine

or oak trees have no spine

or air has no spine

but it sure feels good

to have that non-existent monkey

off my non-existent back

and I'm sure you'll have felt

the exact same way.

After Covid

hot it's not.

cold and wet

ne'er forget.

flowers rot.

rain keeps on.

wind blowin

daylight goin

summer gone.

harsh for some

winter gnaws

sharpens claws

but spring will come.

spring will come

daylight spreads

flower beds

life for some.

Paths

not to be had

not to go there

beyond the pale

beyond the sane

the mainstay is death

the mainstream is death

but stray too far and you come apart

there is a line

fine but stable

to which you can edge

on which you can walk

step by step

and remain safe and clear

Mass Experience

the job gets done

a trudge

a bland expression of inexpression

the day gets done

work is finished

the salary attained

going through the motions

Life Plan

you plan

but you get different results

you don't plan

and something unexpected occurs

you decide to stop planning

and you get what you wanted

even though you never knew you wanted it

you plan to stop planning

but it doesn't work;

a plan emerges nonetheless

but the results are different

and so it goes back to the beginning

but it's not the same beginning.

Machu Picchu and me

seeing Machu Picchu

after three days walking in the Andes

was awe-inspiring at the time

but that was then

in other words

nothing now

and that's OK

now I am typing about this series of thoughts

as they emerge unknown to me

except the first

which got me typing

and that is better than Machu Picchu

which doesn't exist in reality

my reality

which is only now

and only here

here is a living room

not even all of it

as I have my back to what I can imagine

but don't know for certain

is the rest of my living room

and if I turn my head for a moment

to check what's behind me

I lose the part of the living room

I was once facing

It will have disappeared

just like Machu Picchu did

the moment I left it in 1986.

time

runs out

time

runs out

forever

runs out

so run in

and time runs out

always

so run in

always

in a flurry of calm awe and action

sometimes

sometimes

a moment

sometimes

the moment

everything changes

sometimes

love overcomes everything

It

it will come

when you least expect it

when you don't want it

when you least need it

it will come

then

it will go

oat cake sacrament

hard to imagine

oat cake

plain perfection

hard and crumbly

soft firm experience

oat cake communion

this is my body

which I have given unto you

before and after

before my father died

he came to me

and changed my genes

so that he was even more in me

than I was born with

before my mother died

she came to me

and changed my DNA

so that I became more of her

than I was given by her at conception

It has taken fully eight years

for their parts of me

to begin to awaken in me

and I can't tell how long

it will take till these fully flourish

in my malleable mind

space

within the infinite space

I admit a few moments

of extreme pain

but despite a few moments

of extreme pain

I have had infinite space

I have had infinite space

I am infinite space

I know infinite joy

everything

everything is priceless

and therefore useless

everything is worthless

and therefore precious

what is real

 what is real is not what it seems

what is real is not what you think

what is real is beyond belief

what is real other than what is not?

The Turn

strange how it turns

the sphere

never asking permission

as if it was the boss

of all who could be bossed

sitting here doing something

of no account

(and therefore priceless)

when all of a sudden

the turn happens

and a new line of direction

dictates your life

your words

your tune

and it's nothing whatsoever

to do

with you,

whatever "you" actually are

si see nepa oon poem (not haiku and haiku)

si see nepa oon poem

itsa prose

itsa wurkov art

si see oon poem

hiytend awarnes ov cors

do yoo feel thi art?

do yoo feel this art?

it splashez ol over yoo

o its amazing

Not Here

I am not here to be here

but to be elsewhere

where the other me can exist in peace

without the me me

I am not here to exist at all

but to be the ghost of one

who once existed

but fell badly

I am not here but you are

so you think

but truly

no one is here

and here is reserved only

for those who are not here

Cool isn't

I wonder how long it took them

to create that flaked-off painted wall

making it grungy

when beforehand

it was a normal middle-class room

neat and in order

but to make it a space

for people to discuss art and literature

you can't do that in an ordinary room

and they say

and they say

blah

it's true

really

blah

and the world is compelled to listen

to blah

from the Big Bang

till Judgement Day

and no doubt God

just before he made Big Bang

said blah blah blah

as a kind of sub-Presidential speech

and just after Judgement Day

Blah

uttered with false modesty to no one

as they had all been consumed in Hell

for saying Blah while alive

and no one went to Heaven at all

to which God said

Blah

To be said

there is something to be said

in not watching the news

not watching it deliberately

repeatedly not watching it

time after time

until we are shorn of its rotting influence

which may take several years

if not decades

All these papers

all these papers

in a clumsy pile

with Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

near them

a to do list

so mundane

it could be a poem

by Hugo Ball

when I die

all that stuff

and all those papers

will have been done

to no end whatsoever

Art is

art is watching Eastenders

every episode

despite not enjoying it at all

art is not writing down

the pretentious reflections

of critics

and claiming them as your own

art is the last leaf

on the near-winter tree

it's raining (non-haiku)

it's raining

and the neighbours are playing hip hop

through their open window

Advice not to be taken

they tell me not to write on this

the laptop

the computer

it won't be a poem they say

they say it's only possible

if you are out and about

like a landscape artist

with a notebook and pencil

they talk of the creative process

as if it is something different

from eating your toast and beans

they say anything

that pops up in their mind at that times

but pretend that when writing poetry

something else kicks in

but it doesn't

it's all automatic

even if you think it isn't

struggle am I

so they say

write and share them

that's the way

everything else is pretend

I Have Wandered

I have wandered through death

so many times

it's like my back yard

I have wandered through sleaze

so many times

 it's like the mud at the end of the garden

I have wandered through crises

so many times

it feels like I create them

though I don't

I have wandered where I shouldn't have wandered

way too often

and not wandered where I ought to have wandered

I have not trod the true, narrow path

but somehow have stumbled parallel enough to it

to still be on the right course.

Your World is not my World

In your world

you just did

you might have feared

I'm sure you were terrified many times

but still you just did

there was nothing else to do but just do

in my world

you could choose

to do or not to do

that was the annoyingly constant question

freedom to choose

is no freedom at all

when you just want the choice to disappear

and leave you just with one thing

to do

Then your world changed

slowly, deathly

you had choice

and you made choices

and things happened

I happened

and your choices brought new things

to have to do

restricting choice

though not completely

in my world

endless choice

so much that I have to restrict it

try to make it no choice at all

but it doesn't work

even binary provokes uncertainty

your world is not my world

I wouldn't have had yours for the whole world

but I wish I could have had your absence of choice

just in better situations

and oh I do miss you

miss you both

Life

one day you won't be able to run up the stairs

so run up them now

one day you won't be able to walk up these stairs

so run up them now

like you'll never walk them again

one day you won't be able to read this

so read it now

one day

there won't be one day

so do one day now

Battling Battling

It's natural, they say

well so is a storm

a volcano erupting

an earthquake

and human violence

we battle our urges

but battling just adds another urge

it's natural, of course.

instead

step away

away from yourself

battle the battling

by not battling

cede space

let the fighting end

so no one is wounded

and peace can be born

Dead or Alive

is he dead or alive?

my friend, the poet.

I don't know.

Even in the seemingly omniscient world

of social media

there seems to be a silence

which speaks of the worst

and yet

there have been silences before

and silence built on silence

till it seemed the whole world was dead

and yet, here we are

is he alive or dead

the poet, my friend?

What am I talking about?

what am I talking about?

I don't know

I'm just the utterer here

not the one who produces the words to utter

now where was I?

November Song

This is my November song

it's cold and wet and dreary

the days are short, the nights now long

it makes a person weary

but in my heart I take no part

in pessimistic chatter

the sun's above the stormy clouds

the weather doesn't matter

So when it rains just let it fall

for I still feel the sun shine

though my hands are cold, this heart is warm

and all the world looks fine

When night is dark be your own light

and feel the love around you 

for we're all safe and snug inside

and know that peace surrounds you

So this is my November song

I wish you warmth and laughter

and if your mind turns cold and bleak

I wish you sunshine after

Life Matters

life comes

and goes

it's what you do in between

that matters